The Oscar-winning movie made millions making, more than $370 million at the box office. The actors were feted and feasted in Hollywood. But that was then. Rubina Ali, Slumdog Millionaire child-actor, still lives in squalor. She and her co-star, Azhar Ismail, believed they stood on the threshold of a new life, away from the slums of Mumbai from which they had been plucked by director Danny Boyle to play the two leading characters in the film, Jamal and Latika. The children were sure they had the world at their feet, that Hollywood was waiting. They lapped up the attention and fantasised about plush apartments, plum acting roles, a world away from their everyday reality. They had glimpsed the promised land and they wanted a part of it. Yet three years on, their dreams are in tatters.
"When we came back from the Oscars we were so happy. We had all these dreams about what we were going to do and how our lives were going to change," she says "People promised us many things and we believed them. But my dreams have not come true." Rubina lives in a one living room, about 15ft by 10ft, which doubles as a bedroom for the 14-year-old, her mother, father and two sisters. Her two brothers sleep on the floor of the small kitchen. There is a toilet cubicle and a shower room. The water comes on for only 10 minutes a day, and in that time the women scramble to fill buckets and other containers to last them the rest of the day. Tiles are falling off, with bare stretches of rough cement and a curtain to shut off the bathroom and kitchen. A pile of blankets - the family's bedding - sits on a cheap sideboard, the only piece of furniture in the room. There is a TV on one wall, a small pink plastic mirror on another. Rubbish lies festering alongside foul-smelling stagnant water at the rat-infested entrance to Rubina Ali's new home. She thought her luck had finally changed this year when the Jai Ho trust - set up by Boyle to look after the two children - belatedly bought her a permanent home.
She had dreamt of moving to Bandra West, the upmarket suburb when the Jai Ho trust - set up by Boyle to look after the two children - belatedly bought her a permanent home. She wanted a little slice of a life she had glimpsed but briefly. "After the success of the movie I was dreaming that we would see a good apartment and be able to have that, somewhere where I could have my own room," she says. Instead, the trust put her in an unfinished apartment in a cramped apartment block in a rundown part of the suburb. "I still have no privacy. In the slum it was exactly the same, so what is the difference between this and the slum? I still have to share with everyone. There are seven of us, all in here...This place is worse than the slum....I dream and dream of being an actress but if I don't get the work how will people know me? How will I ever be an actress? How will I achieve my dreams?"
Azhar Ismail is not as unhappy with his home as Rubina; the Santacruz area where he lives may not be anything special, but it is a far cry from the squalor in which he lived before. "...in the slum they throw garbage everywhere but here there are dustbins," he says. Paint is peeling off the walls and there are damp patches. He too shares one room with his family - mother, his brother and his brother's wife.
Much of the hope he brought back from Hollywood has slowly ebbed away. "When I came home I thought I would take my father back to Los Angeles and I would work with the big stars and the dreams have not come true," he says. "I dream about the places I went, all the luxury in LA. Everything is very nice there and here in Mumbai everything is slums." He mentions his ghosted autobiography, Slumboy, and his eyes flash with anger. "That woman who wrote my biography. She promised that she would give me money and she gave me nothing."
Both children receive a monthly allowance of Rs 7,000 (£79). The local housing authority promised them new homes but never delivered. Financial assurances they received from their biographers have been broken. Other promises also evaporated as interest in the pair dwindled.
"Sometimes I feel that I am nothing," Rubina says "Then somebody comes to see me and I believe again."
Dharavi, a filthy and cramped sprawl, which inspired the film Slumdog Millionaire and is situated on 215 hectares, is no longer the largest slum in Mumbai, as other shanty-towns in India's financial capital have grown and merged. Provisional data from this year's national census suggests that about nine million people, or 63 per cent of Mumbai's official 14.3 million population, live in slums.
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"When we came back from the Oscars we were so happy. We had all these dreams about what we were going to do and how our lives were going to change," she says "People promised us many things and we believed them. But my dreams have not come true." Rubina lives in a one living room, about 15ft by 10ft, which doubles as a bedroom for the 14-year-old, her mother, father and two sisters. Her two brothers sleep on the floor of the small kitchen. There is a toilet cubicle and a shower room. The water comes on for only 10 minutes a day, and in that time the women scramble to fill buckets and other containers to last them the rest of the day. Tiles are falling off, with bare stretches of rough cement and a curtain to shut off the bathroom and kitchen. A pile of blankets - the family's bedding - sits on a cheap sideboard, the only piece of furniture in the room. There is a TV on one wall, a small pink plastic mirror on another. Rubbish lies festering alongside foul-smelling stagnant water at the rat-infested entrance to Rubina Ali's new home. She thought her luck had finally changed this year when the Jai Ho trust - set up by Boyle to look after the two children - belatedly bought her a permanent home.
She had dreamt of moving to Bandra West, the upmarket suburb when the Jai Ho trust - set up by Boyle to look after the two children - belatedly bought her a permanent home. She wanted a little slice of a life she had glimpsed but briefly. "After the success of the movie I was dreaming that we would see a good apartment and be able to have that, somewhere where I could have my own room," she says. Instead, the trust put her in an unfinished apartment in a cramped apartment block in a rundown part of the suburb. "I still have no privacy. In the slum it was exactly the same, so what is the difference between this and the slum? I still have to share with everyone. There are seven of us, all in here...This place is worse than the slum....I dream and dream of being an actress but if I don't get the work how will people know me? How will I ever be an actress? How will I achieve my dreams?"
Azhar Ismail is not as unhappy with his home as Rubina; the Santacruz area where he lives may not be anything special, but it is a far cry from the squalor in which he lived before. "...in the slum they throw garbage everywhere but here there are dustbins," he says. Paint is peeling off the walls and there are damp patches. He too shares one room with his family - mother, his brother and his brother's wife.
Much of the hope he brought back from Hollywood has slowly ebbed away. "When I came home I thought I would take my father back to Los Angeles and I would work with the big stars and the dreams have not come true," he says. "I dream about the places I went, all the luxury in LA. Everything is very nice there and here in Mumbai everything is slums." He mentions his ghosted autobiography, Slumboy, and his eyes flash with anger. "That woman who wrote my biography. She promised that she would give me money and she gave me nothing."
Both children receive a monthly allowance of Rs 7,000 (£79). The local housing authority promised them new homes but never delivered. Financial assurances they received from their biographers have been broken. Other promises also evaporated as interest in the pair dwindled.
"Sometimes I feel that I am nothing," Rubina says "Then somebody comes to see me and I believe again."
Dharavi, a filthy and cramped sprawl, which inspired the film Slumdog Millionaire and is situated on 215 hectares, is no longer the largest slum in Mumbai, as other shanty-towns in India's financial capital have grown and merged. Provisional data from this year's national census suggests that about nine million people, or 63 per cent of Mumbai's official 14.3 million population, live in slums.
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